843 Acres: All of Life: Enshrouded in Mystery

Mystery: Ironically, one thing that we can know about God is how little we can know about Him. In large part, he is a mystery – not because he chooses to withhold himself, but rather because he is God and we are not. As A.W. Tozer puts it, “Exactly what He is He cannot tell us. Of what God is conscious when He is conscious of self, only He knows. ‘The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.’ Only to an equal could God communicate the mystery of His Godhead; and to think of God as having an equal is to fall into an intellectual absurdity” [1].

Depth: In Psalm 92, the Psalmist sings praise to God and rejoices, “How great are your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep! The stupid man cannot know; the fool cannot understand this” [2]. Then he continues by describing those things that the fool cannot understand—namely, the ways and judgments of God.

Approach: When we approach the Lord, how often are we conscious of his “deep thoughts”? Even his personhood is mysterious! Tozer continues, “Our sincerest effort to grasp the incomprehensible mystery of the Trinity must remain forever futile, and only by deepest reverence can it be saved from actual presumption. Some persons who reject all they cannot explain have denied that God is a Trinity. Subjecting the Most High to their cold, level-eyed scrutiny, they conclude that it is impossible that he could be both One and Three. These forget that their whole life is enshrouded in mystery. They fail to consider that any real explanation of even the simplest phenomenon in nature lies hidden in obscurity and can no more be explained than can the mystery of the Godhead. Every man lives by faith, the nonbeliever as well as the saint; the one by faith in natural laws and the other by faith in God.”

Prayer: Lord, Like the Psalmist, we look upon your creation and see your mysterious glory. Our world is full of the visible and the invisible, the material and the spiritual. It is a wonder that we are not constantly overwhelmed by even the simplest phenomenon in nature. We marvel in your presence. Fill us with wonder for knowing you. Let us not be arrogant or presumptuous for we live by faith. Amen.

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